A lot of potential exists for dwarf sour cherries for the main reason that they can be grown organically on the prairies. This is very promising because nowhere else, can cherries be grown so successfully with so little losses, than on the cold, dry prairies of Canada. The market base for sour cherries will lie mainly in the processing sector and maybe if sweeter, firmer varieties are developed, a successful fresh and retail market. There is limited opportunity in the U-Pick market mainly because the cherries have to be pitted and processed right away or they could lose their colour and flavour. The best place for dwarf sour cherries to be marketed is in the organic processing sector where the prairies will have a big advantage in producing sour cherries.

U-Pick, Farmer's Market, and Wholesale

-The U-pick potential for sour cherries on the priaires is not very large.

-There is potential for areas around large city centres but after that market gets too competitive, there won't be room for expansion in this sector of sour cherries.

-Sour cherries are soft fleshed, which means it would be difficult to transport sour cherries for wholesale and farmers market without damaging the crop.

-The sugar content and colour starts to deplete in sour cherries if they are not processed within 9 hours.

-Basically, the market for U-pick, farmer's market and wholesale is rather small but there is some potential because there are not many sour cherry orchards in production yet on the prairies.
 

Processing/Organic Processing

-Processing is where almost all of the potential lies for dwarf sour cherries on the prairies.

-Since the University of Saskatchewan hybrids have dark red juice, dye doesn't have to be added when processing the cherries, which opens the door for organics processing on the prairies.

-There are not many processed organic cherry products in the market right now.

-We can grow sour cherries organically which is our major competitive advantage.

-Organically grown fruits are rapidly growing in demand as consumers are starting to be more concerned about their health.

-Since we can mechanically harvest our cherries faster than traditional cherries we have another advantage in the processing market because we can supply large quantities at a more competitive price than our other competitors.

-For more marketing ideas and other information on sour cherry products, The Cherry Marketing Institute has a lot of information